TODAY FROM AMERICA:

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST AT THE EDGE OF RIVER CITY:

Graduation Day from Middle School for my granddaughter Amanda happened on Monday. Unfortunately, having to drive from Mendocino that day prevented me from attending. Her mom Hiromi, however, sent me some photographs that she took at the ceremony.My Son Jason and my Granddaughter Amanda.

On Tuesday, on the other hand, I was able to attend HRM’s graduation from Middle School in the Golden Hills. Even though the event had been scheduled for what was for me very early in the morning, I still managed to drive there from the Enchanted Forest and arrive in time. It was a very hot morning. The attendees sat in the bleachers in the boiling heat. Toward the end of the ceremony, I began to feel faint and left to return to my car.

While returning to my car, I passed a crowd of people milling about and an ambulance. Dick told me a woman standing next to him collapsed. He said that the first responders told him that she had stopped breathing and had no heartbeat. Later, Hayden said he had heard that she had recovered.
The next day, HRM left for Cozumel for a week and I spent most of the day in bed recovering from the rigors of driving from Mendocino and attending the Graduation ceremony. We decrepit Vecchi are quite delicate you understand.

I wonder why I keep writing T&T. Maintaining a journal in order to record one’s stumbles from event to event or from adventure to adventure is probably a good thing. Unfortunately, in my case, there are a limited number of times one can write about walking the dog, the beauty of the flowers along the path or complaining about my health or boredom. I usually spend only about half an hour in any day writing. Why not more? Well, primarily because I refuse to spend time and effort editing what I write or struggling for excellence in expression. Why would I? It’s boring and I’m not getting paid. I spend most of my time instead reading or searching the internet for my favorite blogs, entering bits and pieces of some past T&T in various blog sites, watching MSNBC, CNN, old movies on TCM, walking the dog, looking at the flowers, eating, taking naps and so on.

This morning I woke up depressed. I did not know why. I did have odd dreams during the night. I remembered them for a while then, as the morning wore on, forgot them. Maybe that is why I was depressed. Not forgetting the dreams, although that could be depressing I suppose, but because of the nature of the dreams themselves. All I recall about them was my frustration, like when I was younger dreaming about being unable to get to a class on time or something like that.

Today the nation celebrated D-day. This evening I watched, “The Longest Day” and “Overlord” on television. That’s a lot of killing and dying. Of the two, I thought Overlord was the better movie. It told the tragic story of one callow young man who was a tiny cog in something he neither understood nor controlled. It was not a vehicle for aging cinema stars who avoided combat and young wannabes to strut their stuff in an epic glorifying war. As many of those soldiers who survived Omaha Beach said, “There were no heroes at Omaha Beach, only those who were lucky and those who were not.” If one adds to that the fact that the allied decision to pursue the difficult amphibious invasion in Normandy instead of continuing to push into Germany from the existing allied bases in Italy was a political, not a military one, the suffering and death of those forced to charge directly into machine-gun fire along the Normandy beaches that day seem even more tragic and unnecessary. As the two time Medal of Honor recipient, Marine Major-General Smedley Butler said, “War is a Racket.” There are no glorious wars, only effective propaganda. We fight to preserve the rulers we have and know, rather than submit to tyrants we don’t. Or, more likely, we are forced to fight by the rulers we have because they fear replacement by the tyrants they may know but we do not.

Moving on from, mayhem and massacres — on Friday evening while helping Naida with some problems finding a book designer for her memoir, we fell into a discussion about Malcolm Margolin, a Bay Area publisher and author and a friend of Naida’s. Margolin wrote The Ohlone Way an acclaimed and seminal book describing the culture of the Native Americans who inhabited the Bay Area prior to the arrival of the Europeans. I, of course, trolled through the internet to find whatever could about the man and his work. Ultimately, to my surprise what most captured my attention was neither his work nor accomplishments but this photograph:

I spent a lot of time staring at the photograph wondering what I was really looking at. Margolin disappeared. In his place was my image of God or Gandalf, the Rabbi for us all, a gnome, Mr. Natural, an ancient elf, or perhaps even the aging Aristotle. Whatever it may have reminded me of, I knew that if I ever had the urge to find a guru for myself, I would want him to look like that. Naida described him as an intelligent, creative and compassionate man, part rabbi and part Native American who was changed by coming to California and changed California in return. (See quote below)

Saturday, Naida and I attended a luncheon hosted by the Sacramento Book Collectors Club. I realized, in my now getting on to be a long life, I have not gone to many events like this. Most of the thirty or so attendees were around our age. A few were local authors like Naida. I kinda enjoyed it. The guest speaker was the director of the Sacramento Library which I was surprised to learn was organized as a special district and as such was not part of the general City and County government. She spoke about the library of course and her role in running it.

She also told stories about growing up and her love of books, mentioning several of her favorites including, The Wind in the Willows which was one of mine too. It got me musing about my own relationship with books.

Being read to in two languages while still in my crib led soon to me often being recruited to recite to family and friends the songs, poetry, and stories I had learned. I was, after all, the family’s Golden Child — I had blond hair. Not long into my burgeoning career as the Petrillo family child star, my hair turned black and I stopped performing. Things started going downhill for me soon after.

I began reading when I was a few months into my third year of existence. It was not an unmixed blessing for I soon came to be more fond of books than people. When I began formal schooling, I found it boring and would fake being sick so that my mom would keep me home where I would spend my time reading, especially the Collier’s Encyclopedia my parents were cajoled into buying. When I became a little older, I would slip out of the house after my parents went off to work or to some other adult activity and walk to the local public library in order to entertain myself there rummaging through the stacks and reading any interesting books that I found. I recall there was a children’s section and an adult section. All the books were marked on their spines with the Roman numerals, I, II, or III. I was for children and III were adult books. I do not recall what II designated. Because the librarians were very vigilant in making sure I would not read the III books, I would often pick out a large, colorful children book and prop it up on the library table I sat at so it would hide whatever III book I was reading at the time.

During the times I actually went to school and attended class, I would locate myself at the desk nearest the bookcase that graced each classroom and read the books stored there, usually history books, rather than pay attention to whatever was going on around me in the classroom. By the time I got to high school, I rarely attended class. When I was not skipping school and running off with some other delinquent, I would sit in the school library. I had challenged myself to read all the books in that library before I graduated, beginning with A and continuing to Z. I got as far an Emily Post if I remember correctly. The problem was not that I did not have time to read through to Z but rather the existence of one bookcase containing whatever new books that entered the library that month. These would remain in that bookcase until, in about a month’s time, they were removed and re-shelved in the general stacks. I simply had to read each new book as it came in before I would return to my trip through the alphabet. All this, of course, played havoc with my grades in school given that I rarely, if ever, did any homework as well as missing most class assignments. Nevertheless, I tested well enough to scrape through.

Later In life, as one would expect, I collected books, building up personal libraries of between 6 and 12 thousand books. Given how I conducted my adult life, — occupying myself with some obsession for about five to ten years and then suffering some real or imagined crisis causing me to abandon everything while I ran off somewhere to bury myself in overindulgence until I regained my balance and started off on some new obsession — I must have abandoned and reassembled those personal libraries at least three times so far. Alas, I fear the smart-phone and social media are killing off the age of paper books (1450 — 2020). Sad but inevitable.

One of the attendees at the luncheon mentioned she writing a book or article about California’s Coastal Program and some friend of her’s who apparently was very active in it but who I never heard of. When Naida mentioned my past involvement in things coastal, she asked to interview me for some background. I agreed.

Sunday was another nap day and Monday started out the same. Naida and I went out to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant named Roxy. I ordered a hotdog. While eating it a piece of the hotdog got caught in my throat and I threw up onto my plate. When we returned home, I took a nap. Vomiting up my lunch was enough excitement for me today.

By Tuesday, the local temperature outside approached 100 degrees. Naida and I took the dog for a morning walk. We tried to walk as much as possible in the shadow of the trees that grace the Enchanted Forest in order to enjoy the meager coolness that it afforded us. I began to sense fatigue and a slight faintness as we walked along, so we stopped and sat on a bench and talked about the trees around us — Well mostly Naida talked, answering my questions about this or that species of tree. She also had some interesting stories about how the different types of non-native tree ended up here in California. Eventually, I no longer felt faint, so we returned home and I took a nap. I need to keep in mind something I read recently, “If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.”

A little later Naida joined me and we slept until late in the afternoon. Later, I rummaged about in my computer, while Naida reviewed her notes for the second volume of her memoir. While doing so, she discovered an 80-page notebook and journal that she had been assembling as background for the memoir but had abandoned and forgotten. She read me excerpts and worried that some of the things she had noted should have been included in volume one. I recall one of the excerpts she read. It related to the fact that she spent most of her childhood with her aging grandparents in rural Idaho and Montana. She wrote in the notebook that, as a result, she felt herself more a child of nineteenth-century culture than the mid-twentieth century and that it was reflected in her novels.

It is Friday morning, I cannot recall much of what I have been up to for the last three days. Last night we went to a restaurant nearby for “happy hour” with those who usually attend The Saturday Coffee at the clubhouse. Winnie sat beside me. We discussed our various maladies, treatment, and prognoses. I drank the specialty of the house made with some local vodka and cranberry bitters. It was not very good.

The next morning while waiting for the plumber to arrive Naida discovered that the dedication in her book “Rest for the Wicked” included a reference to the old ragtime tune, “The Preacher and the Bear.” We then spent some time singing, along with a Phil Harris rendition of that song, the refrain of which goes like this:

Oh Lawd, you delivered Daniel from the lion’s den
Also delivered Jonah from the belly of the whale and then
The Hebrew children from the fiery furnace
So the good book do declare
Yes! Lord, if you can help me,
For goodness sake din’t help that bear.

Then for some reason, we sang a few refrains of “Rag Time Cowboy Joe” along with some shaking of our booties and waving of our arms. All in all, it was a good morning. Even the dog held off barking at every bird or car that passed within two hundred feet of the house. Instead, he just curled up and slept while we danced and sang around the room. Whether he was just exhausted by his job as a household morning wake up alarm clock, or expressing a comment on our behavior, he didn’t say.

Last night we attended the annual Cinco de Mayo dance at the Campus Commons Community Center which for some reason was held over a month late. Many of the attendees were also those who attend the Saturday Morning Coffee and the Thursday Happy Hours. The themed dance is held every month and is referred to as The Thank God It’s Friday Dance. Why they name these events after the day of the week they are held, I have no idea. Maybe, because most of the attendees are ancients like me and subject to failing memories, they think it will help us to remember.

Anyway, at last nights dance many attendees dressed up in what I assume was supposed to be Mexican peasant or Zorro-like mustachioed brigands costumes. Since there were no Mexican peasants or brigands there to ask, I have no idea how realistic they were. Not very, I imagine. Last year at this same event, I was volunteered to act as bartender. Halfway through the evening, I was summarily fired for opening the bar a half hour before I was supposed to, filling everyone’s mixed drinks mostly with alcohol, getting a number of the good old girls roaring drunk and generally having a good time.

Naida and I had a great time. Naida got a bit tipsy. I went for a long walk around the lake. We sat on the veranda perched above the water and listened to Ducky (also known to be one of the two CIA operatives in the subdivision) tell the story about how her son crashed in a plane in the desert, crawled two miles to shelter and survived with only several years treatment in the local burn center. Oh also, he is a lawyer. We sat on the veranda with another old couple also. His name was Bob and hers I forgot. Bob seemed to think that Proposition 13 was a good thing for California. He may have been a lawyer too. We also listened to live music (sort of) played by a small band.

The Band — I said it was small.

Now you all have a good week, hear.

MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES:

Recently, rummaging through some documents in long-ignored files that I had accumulated on my computer over the years, I came across a draft post describing a critical and amusing point in the process during the passage through the legislature of California’s Coastal Program forty years ago. In an effort to emphasize it as a humorous but accurate example of the legislative process in general, the draft does not identify the legislation nor the parties by name.

How Legislation Gets Passed — A Case History.

For three days we sat in the Senator’s office mostly in silence. A little over four years before, I began the drafting, redrafting and editing, cajoling supporters and threatening the opposition where I could not persuade them to compromise on what eventually became what many were calling the most significant legislation of the decade. It was the Senator’s job to persuade and maneuver the bill that now bore his name through the legislature. About a week before, we had received commitments from seventeen of the twenty-one senators needed to pass the bill and send it on to the Governor to be signed into law. Since then, not a single additional legislator agreed to support the bill. Only three days remained before the session ended. If we did not have the votes before then, the bill would die.

Now and then, the Senator would return to the floor for required votes on other pending legislation or to try to find someone willing to consider voting for the bill. I would sometimes call around to one or another of the legislation’s supporters urging them to keep up the pressure on the uncommitted legislators and lying to them about our chances for success.

Mostly, however, the Senator and I just sat in his office in silence and waited and hoped.

It was close to noon that day when the phone rang. The Senator picked it up and after a series of grunts, yeses, a few okays and one right away, he turned to me with a big smile on his face and said, “That was the Governor’s Chief of Staff. The Governor has decided to come out in support of the bill.”

A little background may be helpful here. The bill itself was very Party-oriented, one Party generally supported it while the other did not. Nothing unusual there. The Party that supported the legislation was in power and the Governor was a member of that Party as was the Senator. However, one of the Party’s staunchest interest groups and some of the Party’s largest campaign contributors strongly opposed it and for all extent and purposes controlled the last remaining votes needed to pass the bill.

Early on in the session, the Senator and I met with the Governor to solicit his endorsement because during his election campaign he had expressed strong support for legislation like this. In response to our request, he said, “You have no bill. When you are down to needing one vote to pass the legislation come back to me and I will think about it then.” I could not help but recall Franklin Roosevelt’s response to his staff when they urged him to support the creation of Social Security. “Make me,” he told them.

The Senator instructed me to meet with the Governor and his Chief of Staff to try to come up with a strategy that would gain the required votes. He had to stay close to the Senate chambers in order to respond to vote calls and to present other bills he was carrying.

So, I traveled through the Capitol and on to the large doors that guarded the entrance to the Governor’s suite of offices. I announced myself to the receptionist and then waited for someone to escort me to the Governor’s private office. To my surprise, instead of a secretary or an intern showing up to accompany me, it was the Chief of Staff himself. He beckoned me to follow him. He then turned and without a word strode off down the long hallway that extended from the reception area to the Governor’s inner sanctum.

The chief of staff, an austere character, was as grey and colorless as his name. He was reputed to eat and breathe politics, at least that half of it that consisted of manipulation and strategy. The other half that entailed charisma and bonhomie he hadn’t a clue.

We walked down that long hallway to the room furthest from the reception area. We entered. The Governor was seated behind the large dark wood desk one expects in the offices of the big kahunas of large powerful organizations. I was impressed that he made no pretense to be working on anything. Instead, his sharp eyes followed me as I walked across the room and went to sit on one of the uncomfortable under-upholstered armchairs that faced his desk. The Chief of Staff rounded the desk and took up a position slightly behind the Governors left shoulder. He remained standing.

The Governor was an unprepossessing man, balding slightly, somewhat hawk-faced, round shoulders, rather smallish in stature and bulk. He radiated no charisma other than that imparted by the room, the desk and his position as Governor of the State. Perhaps that was why, in my opinion, he ranked as a better Governor than the average Governor I had known. Still, had he appeared before me for a management position in an organization that I might have run, I would not have chosen him. He seemed to lack that hubris and aggressive arrogance that we all too often mistake for ability in men.

On the other hand, he possessed his own quirky brand of arrogance, often greeting proposals from his own staff with responses that bordered on disdain. Sometimes he would propose alternatives that even his admirers would call bizarre. Surprisingly, however, many of those alternatives seemed to work out.

“How many votes do you got?”, he said in that gravelly and slightly unpleasant voice of his. I had not fully sat down yet. I stopped my descent and answered, “We’re three short.” That was a lie. We were four short but what the hell difference did it make. Three sounded better than four.

“Well, who’s holding out?” he barked.

I named seven legislators from the Governors Party.

The Governor turned to the Chief of Staff and asked, “Of that group, who do you think is dumb enough that I could get him to switch and maybe get the ball rolling?”(to be continued)

DAILY FACTOID:

1590. Death of Maddalena Casulana, Italian composer, lutenist, and singer. She was the first female composer in the history of western music to have her music printed and published.

PEPE’S POTPOURRI:

A. Something Silly on Top:

Recently, one of my aging and by now well-aged friends sent me the following:

Now that I’m older, here’s what I’ve discovered:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.
3. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
4. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
5. If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?
6. It was a whole lot easier to get older than it was to get wiser.
7 Some days, you’re the top dog, some days you’re the hydrant.
8. I wish the buck really did stop here; I sure could use a few of them.
9. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.
10. Accidents in the back seat cause kids.
11. It is hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.
12. The world only beats a path to your door when you’re in the bathroom.
13. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he’d have put them on my knees.
14. When I’m finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.
15. It is not hard to meet expenses . . . They’re everywhere.
16. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth..
17. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I’m “here after”.
18. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
19. It is a lot better to be seen than viewed.
20. Have I sent this message to you before…or did I get it from you?

B. Tuckahoe Joe’s Blog of the Week:

Yesterday evening, while Naida was busy writing her memoir and I busy wasting time, I came across an email from the Sacramento Historical Society containing an announcement of an event to be held later this month entitled “Wicked Sacramento.” The brochure featured photographs from the turn of the nineteenth century of a few “women of easy virtue” (“Courtesan” is perhaps a bit too aristocratic for an ex cow-town like Sacramento) and men of violent temperament. I asked Naida if she would like to attend the event. She responded in the affirmative and added that the third volume of her California Gold Trilogy, Rest for the Wicked, featured a well-known woman of ill repute named Helen Beulah Mrose. She gave me a copy of the novel. I turned to the back and found a lengthy note about Helen Mrose including that while living in San Francisco she had married John Wesley Hardin, perhaps the deadliest gunslinger and murderer in the American West. Helen had met Hardin in Texas. He had been the attorney for Mrose’s husband who had been charged with cattle rustling. Together they killed her husband, cleaned out his bank account and left for the high life in The City by the Bay’s burgeoning red-light district. I learned early in law school that this is the stock in trade of all good attorneys if they can get away with it.

Intrigued I began to search further about the darling duo and I came upon an internet magazine entitled “TrueWest” (https://truewestmagazine.com/). It contained brief but interesting articles about some of the West’s better-known characters, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Calamity Jane, and others. There is even an article about how Johnny Ringo really died (not well by the way).
Here is a little more I discovered in TrueWest about Helen Beulah Mrose and John Wesley Hardin:

On August 6, 1895, gunman John Wesley Hardin nearly got into a strange shootout. He and his lover Helen Beulah Mrose were in an El Paso (photo) lodging house. Their relationship, often fueled by alcohol, had been getting more and more violent.

Mrs. Mrose pulled a pistol and threatened to kill Wes, whose own gun was on a table across the room. The house proprietor walked in and defused the situation—although Mrs. Mrose threatened to shoot Hardin in the head while he slept. That didn’t happen; Hardin was killed by John Selman three weeks later.Mark Boardman features editor at TrueWest and editor of The Tombstone Epitaph.

Another tidbit from the site regarding someone named Bill Beck:

Bill Beck was a well-known character to the bartenders around Arizona. He’d studied law as a young man in Texas but didn’t practice long. No sooner than he opened an office the court assigned him to defend a cow thief who had no money. The thief took one look at him and said, “I plead guilty.”

Bill said the blatant lack of faith from his first client caused him to quit practicing law and go to punching cattle.

I find it intriguing to read about attorney’s turning from the practice of law to a life of crime and mayhem. I always felt there existed a strong streak of psychopathy among my colleagues at law. I should not be surprised. After all, Practical Psychopathy is a first-year course in law school,
On Calamity Jane:

The year 1876 proved the turning point in Calamity Jane Canary’s career. It began with two quick trips to the Black Hills with Gen. George Crook and his army in the winter and spring of that year. Calamity may have served informally as a scout (so a good source claims), but primarily she was a camp follower, hitching rides with soldiers and sneaking in among the teamsters and bullwhackers until she was discovered, chased out and sent back south. Several travelers on these trips and other observers reported her with Crook—and not always traditionally dressed or sober. One teamster described her as “dressed in a buckskin suit with two Colts six shooters on a belt.” To him, she was one of the roughest persons he had ever seen. Calamity’s travel itinerary in the late spring and early summer of 1876 was chockablock, and more. In March she was with Crook to the north, in May back in Cheyenne, where she was arrested for stealing clothes, but was declared “Not. Guilty” [sic]. In early June she zipped back north for a second jaunt with Crook. Heading out of Cheyenne, “greatly” rejoicing “over her release from durance vile” [jail], she “borrowed” a horse and buggy. After overindulging in “frequent and liberal potations” of “bug juice,” she headed for Fort Laramie, 90 miles up from Cheyenne. By mid-June, Calamity was celebrating with soldiers from Fort Laramie. The rhythm of her life, already in uncertain high gear, whirled into overdrive in the coming months.
Excerpted from Richard W. Etulain’s Calamity Jane: A Reader’s Guide (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015)

Calamity did not attend law school but only because women were not admitted then.
One last brief article from the magazine:

Jim Clements was a member of a gunfighting family, which included at least four other pistoleers in addition to John Wesley Hardin. He was also related by marriage to contract killer Jim Miller.

Clements was born in the 1840s. In 1871, he accompanied his cousin Wes on a cattle drive to Kansas—and killed two men en route (Hardin downed another four himself).

Historian Bob Alexander says Clements was last seen alive on May 22, 1897. He had been having trouble with his estranged wife, who went home to Gonzales. Her in-laws warned him to leave her alone, but he followed her. Bad move. His body was never found.David Lambert. Menifee, California

Murder and mayhem seem to have run in the family. Perhaps, it was just the family business. I am sure they were not all lawyers — some may have been accountants and perhaps there was a lobbyist or two.C. Trenz Pruca’s Observations:

Today we are faced not with a single crisis or even a succession of crises. We are faced instead with a series of system collapses each making the others more severe. Yet, the resolution of one requires the resolution of the others. Unfortunately, we lack the mechanism to prevent the collapse of even a single system much less a series of them.

D. Today’s Poem:

Bhagavad Gita — IntroductionIntroduction

I was born in the darkest ignorance, and my spiritual master opened my eyes with the torch of knowledge. I offer my respectful obeisances unto him.
When will Srila Rupa Gosvami Prabhupada, who has established within this material world the mission to fulfill the desire of Lord Caitanya, give me shelter under his lotus feet?
I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master and unto the feet of all Vaisnavas. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of Srila Rupa Gosvami along with his elder brother Sanatana Gosvami, as well as Raghunatha Dasa and Raghunatha Bhatta, Gopala Bhatta, and Srila Jiva Gosvami. I offer my respectful obeisances to Lord Krsna Caitanya and Lord Nityananda along with Advaita Acarya, Gadadhara, Srivasa, and other associates. I offer my respectful obeisances to Srimati Radharani and Sri Krsna along with Their associates, Sri Lalita and Visakha.
O my dear Krsna, You are the friend of the distressed and the source of creation. You are the master of the gopis and the lover of Radharani. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You.
I offer my respects to Radharani whose bodily complexion is like molten gold and who is the Queen of Vrndavana. You are the daughter of King Vrsabhanu, and You are very dear to Lord Krsna.
I offer my respectful obeisances unto all the Vaisnava devotees of the Lord who can fulfill the desires of everyone, just like desire trees, and who are full of compassion for the fallen souls.
I offer my obeisances to Sri Krsna Caitanya, Prabhu Nityananda, Sri Advaita, Gadadhara, Srivasa and all others in the line of devotion.
hare krishna hare krishna, krishna krishna hare hare
hare rama hare rama, rama rama hare hare.

TODAY’S QUOTE:

“The Bay Area of today is vastly different from what it was two centuries ago. The grizzly bears, elks, bald eagles, ospreys, antelopes, wolves, and condors have totally disappeared. Introduced European annual grasses have seized the meadowlands from the native bunch-grasses. The widespread logging of trees for lumber, tanning bark, firewood, railroad ties, and fence posts have altered the forests. Ponds and lakes have been drained, rivers channelized, and thousands upon thousands of acres of marshes and swamps have been destroyed. The immense flocks of geese, ducks and pelicans, the great runs of salmon and steelhead, the enormous schools of smelt, the once numberless seals and whales are now a mere remnant of what they once were. As for the Ohlones — forty or so tribelets, some 10,000 people, indeed a whole way of life — that too is totally gone, replaced by a civilization technologically more advanced than theirs but in many respects, ecologically, socially, and spiritually more backward.”Malcolm Margolin, The Ohlone Way (1978). Heyday Books: Berkeley.

TODAY’S CHART:

What the graph does not tell you is that although the overall rate of population growth seems to be falling, it is not so in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. So, even if we make it through the next 30 years or so, they will be leaving their too hot and too dry lands and coming north. Never forget the old saying, “Demographics is destiny.”